There is a slight fault in the Veteran mode. Since it always draws on experience from over 200 000 games you can keep playing the same set of four hands over and over and keep beating it. You can’t do that on novice mode because it would just learn from you and beat you 100%. I just played 100 games on Veteran and have beat the computer 64-32-4. It only won the first four games and then it got caught in a loop. I assume it would learn if a lot of people started playing the same four hands over and over. I Played Rock, Rock, Rock, Scissors, Repeat…

Interesting I just started the game again with the exact same strategy and it appears to have already learned.

Of course I expect that people who win will come here to brag. Why tell everyone you aren’t smarter than an algorithm? But I will.It beat me.
On one hand I’m embarrassed on the other hand, good for the developers! Let’s acknowledge their brains.

Then I used a “random” number generator on the computer and used it’s results and I beat it. (I used one computer algorithm to beat another, I’m still not smarter than the algorithm.)

What I found most interesting is what the computer was “thinking” based on looking at past throws. That was really interesting. Once you understand how it works it’s not so mysterious. In general I’m in awe of people who combined the various elements of math, stats and computer programing to make this. Well done!

I’m actually pretty decent at Rock, Paper Scissors; when I played Cosmic Coasters (which uses RPS as a resolution mechanism in its combat system), I was able to frustrate the friend I was playing against by getting inside his head and semi-consciously predicting his moves.

Against the robot player just now? In 7 rounds (in Veteran mode), I won 3, lost 1, and we tied 3 times, but then I had to stop because the lack of a human player to second-guess was freaking me out. I was surprised at how stressful it was.

One strategy that seems to mess up it’s data crunching is to pick one of the three options (say, rock) and never throw it. Ever. Limit yourself to Paper and Scissors. At round 50 I have a score of 22-17-11. While a human would realize, and adapt to never throw paper, forcing me to change strategies, the way the program focuses on it’s entire database means it keeps throwing paper, and getting beat or tied.

When I played naturally–just clicking quickly on whichever play I wanted, the computer was able to predict my moves decently. When I consciously made an effort to play “strangely” and change my strategy after a few moves, I was able to keep ahead of the computer.

I got 67% by playing predictively, no system. “What would it expect based on the last two results?” and playing what would beat it, the way you might against a human. Going an extra move ahead backfires, so I guess most people don’t go deeper than one counter-move.

I was able to beat it the first 100 rolls: 38, 34, 28. It started to figure out my zen strategy at around 170. Around 220, it passed me and got up to 10 up on me. Then I switched to a d6 + intuition. I beat it by only a couple around 500 throws.